Friday, January 15, 2016

David Bowie was many things, and among them, he was married to a Muslim

Aki Nawaz (of Fun'Da'Mental) posted this photo of the late David Bowie on Facebook yesterday (January 14).

It's David's wedding (1992) to Iman Mohamed Abdulmajid, daughter of Marian and Mohamed Abdulmajid, all shown here. Aki states that he had not seen any condolences to Iman on social media, and so he wrote, 'for
what it's worth and respectfully in the traditional religious manner
we say "From God we come and return" and may your pain and loss be
bearable to all the family.'

I found this incredibly moving, both to be reminded that Bowie, besides being all the other incredible things that he was, which so many great articles and posts have told us over the past few days, was also a married man, and, yes, was married into a Muslim family. Some folks objected to Aki's post saying, she wasn't an observant Muslim, she posed for Playboy, etc. On the other hand, I've never seen evidence that Iman ever publicly abandoned or criticized her faith. I'm not a Muslim myself, but I'd say that, from the Muslim perspective as I would want to understand it, it is up to God to judge Iman and not us, and therefore, Aki's condolences seem entirely appropriate.

As an aside, Aki's post impelled me to do a bit of reading, and I have learned that Iman's father was a Somali diplomat and her mother a gynecologist, and that Iman attended high school in Egypt and speaks (apparently) Arabic. And as for David Bowie, allah yarhamu.

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About Me

Professor of Anthropology, University of Arkansas. Author of Memories of Revolt: The 1936-39 Rebellion and the Palestinian National Past. Co-editor of Palestine, Israel and the Politics of Popular Culture and of Displacement, Diaspora, and Geographies of Identity.